His recent goals include stemming gun violence, getting Muni to run on time, and making corny, mustachioed Mayor Ed Lee look cool by filming a campaign video on his behalf featuring MC Hammer and then-Giants pitcher Brian Wilson.

Now Conway is tackling perhaps the city's most intractable problem, the one mayors and service providers have grappled with for decades. Yes, he's turned his sights on homelessness.

At Wednesday's 48th Project Homeless Connect - a one-stop shop for homeless people to receive services - Conway will announce that his Sf.citi association of San Francisco-based tech companies will make Project Homeless Connect its philanthropy focus for this year.

The 25,000 tech workers employed at Sf.citi companies will be encouraged to donate time, job training services and money to the bimonthly Project Homeless Connect, as well as its smaller, round-the-clock spin-off, Everyday Connect.

Sf.citi will circulate a list of the most common needs of Everyday Connect and what it would cost to fulfill them. For example, tech workers will learn they could give a set of dentures for $1,000, a pair of eyeglasses for $50, a jacket for $40 or a box of feminine hygiene products for $5.

Sf.citi - akin to a Chamber of Commerce for the tech set - will also announce its 500th member, Neighborland, an online message board that aims to have users solve the problems in their neighborhoods. Neighborland will seek ideas for new ways to help homeless people and attempt to engage the entire city in a discussion about the issue.

This isn't the first time Conway has been involved in homelessness. He was the president of Project Homeless Connect's board of directors when it began in 2004. He has also donated money to successful ballot measures to ban aggressive panhandling and sitting or lying on sidewalks.

Bevan Dufty, the mayor's point person on homelessness, said Lee welcomes new ideas on tackling homelessness - and that working closely with homeless people will give tech workers frustrated by street behavior along Mid-Market and elsewhere a fresh perspective.

"Is there room for innovation? Is there room to do things better? Absolutely," Dufty said. "The city is open to that. We may be able to teach them, but they can certainly teach us. It's a two-way street."

Herrera on Tuesday joined a group of 18 doctors from across the country in calling for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate caffeine levels in energy drinks, saying the beverages pose health risks, particularly for youths.

Herrera is already investigating the Corona (Riverside County) maker of Monster Energy drinks under the state's unfair competition law, targeting its marketing claims that the amount of caffeine in its products is "completely safe" and that consumers "can never get too much of a good thing!"

The doctors, in a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, said that energy drinks like Monster Energy, Red Bull and 5-Hour Energy should have no more caffeine than currently allowed in sodas, and that companies should be required to list caffeine content on labels.

Under current FDA standards, caffeine in sodas can register no higher than about 71 milligrams per 12-ounce serving.

Energy drinks often have 100 to 300 milligrams of caffeine per 8-ounce can, said the doctors, who were from places like Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, and UCSF's pediatric and cardiology divisions.

Among the health problems they cited were 13 deaths reported to the FDA that may involve 5-Hour Energy, and five deaths reported to the FDA in which consumption of Monster Energy drinks "was implicated." Cardiovascular problems, childhood obesity and seizures were among the health complications the doctors noted.

Herrera, who sent the FDA a separate letter on Tuesday, said in a statement, "Caffeine-dosed energy drinks will never give you wings - but they may give you deadly health problems."

Monster Beverage released a statement Tuesday that said, "The company has previously provided the city attorney of San Francisco with citations to numerous examples of third party scientific documentation substantiating the safety of our products. We stand by the safety of our products."

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